Israeli car chip co Valens raises $60m

The Hod Hasharon company will use the funds to promote its HDBaseT technology semiconductors for enhanced car communications.

Israeli semiconductor company Valens has raised $60 million in a financing round led by Israel Growth Partners (IGP), and including Delphi, Samsung Catalyst Fund, Goldman Sachs and MediaTek as new investors, in addition to Valens’ existing investors.The new funding will enable the Hod Hasharon based company to make inroads into the automotive industry with its HDBaseT technology. This latest funding round will also allow Valens to speed up time to market, develop additional products per market demands and support customers with design and development projects.

Valense cofounder and CEO Dror Jerushalmi said, “Valens is deeply committed to the automotive market, which represents a major growth area for the company, and this financing round strengthens the ecosystem we are building to do so. Delphi, Samsung, who recently completed the acquisition of HARMAN, and MediaTek are leading players in the sector and value the potential of our solution for the advancement of the connected car.”

Valens introduced its HDBaseT Automotive technology in 2016 to address the challenges of the connected car, including the increasing amount of bandwidth and wiring necessary to cater to infotainment and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems needs.

During the past year, Valens has made considerable progress in the automotive industry, including: Having HDBaseT Automotive be selected by Daimler as the technology of choice to guarantee high performance of advanced infotainment and telematics systems. Launching the first automotive silicon to demonstrate the transmission of high-throughput, time-sensitive applications over an HDBaseT Automotive link while using a standard UTP channel.

Jerushalmi added, “We have made some significant strides in the automotive market in the past year, and the support of IGP, who has a solid track record of investing in technology companies in growing markets, and of the unique investors’ syndicate participating in this round is a testament to this success and to our drive to continue doing so going forward.”

As part of this investment round, Moshe Lichtman, co-founder and General Partner of IGP will join Valens’ Board of Directors.

Lichtman said, “Valens has shown its commitment to revolutionizing wired connectivity in several industries, and its success in the audiovisual and consumer electronics market is proof of it. We have been deeply impressed with Valens’ management team and with their collaboration with some of the world’s leading automotive companies. We believe the Valens technology will be an important enabler in the era of connected and autonomous cars and we are looking forward to assisting the company in fully realizing its potential in the market.”

“Best-in-class signal and power distribution capabilities are key enablers for increasing levels of vehicle connectivity and automation,” said Glen De Vos, Delphi senior vice president and chief technology officer. “Our investment and partnership with Valens brings great opportunity to leverage the potential of HDBaseT Automotive technology in future mobility platforms.”

“There is great potential in the automotive industry as it continues to embrace technological change. We see significant opportunity for Valens to benefit from this trend and look forward to supporting the company’s growth going forward,” commented Michael Ronen, Partner at Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Division and head of Automotive 2.0 Banking.